A Hora da Estrela by Clarice Lispector — Not set in Curitiba but essential for understanding Brazil's south-to-north migration and the experience of the Brazilian poor. Lispector was Brazil's greatest 20th-century novelist, and this short, devastating late work remains her masterpiece.
Os Sertões (Rebellion in the Backlands) by Euclides da Cunha — Brazil's defining work of social and geographical literature, written in the 1890s. It covers the northeast rather than the south, but reading it before or during any Brazilian trip gives the country's inequalities and regional identities their necessary context.
The Brazil Reader: History, Culture, Politics, edited by Robert M. Levine and John J. Crocitti — An anthology of primary sources, essays, and literary extracts covering Brazilian history from the colonial period to the present. Strong on the south's German and Italian immigrant experience, which is central to understanding Curitiba.
Curitiba: A Model City for the World by Jonas Rabinovitch and Josef Leitman — A clear-eyed account of how Curitiba developed its innovative urban planning model, written for a general audience. The BRT system, the parks, the recycling programme — this explains where they came from and why they worked.